<p>If you want a career as a performing musician, unless you are already at a professional level it is very difficult to continue to advance at a school like Brown, where music is an academic subject and performing more of an extracurricular activity. You will also, as earlier posters noted, find that the level of the performing ensembles is nowhere near what you would find at a conservatory.</p>
<p>Serious musicians who are also high-achieving academic students who want a rigorous liberal arts education should be looking at Yale and Columbia. Yale, because the top undergrad musicians there can gain access to the resources of the graduate music school and with luck end up with a B.A. and M.Mus. in five years, and Columbia because of access to the incredible musical resources of New York City. Students who never need any sleep or downtime can also consider the joint Columbia/Juilliard and Harvard/NEC programs.</p>